


Purple

by NotManTheLessButNatureMore



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 17:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15778914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotManTheLessButNatureMore/pseuds/NotManTheLessButNatureMore
Summary: Strike, Robin, Ilsa and Nick have a few drinks. Maybe more than a few in Strike’s case.





	Purple

**Author's Note:**

> It is now 2:19am as I finish this so please excuse any errors and it’s meandering nature. Thanks for reading. 
> 
> P.s. Lethal White next month!!!!

“Hey Robin..” Strike’s eyes paused in their roving around the room and settled on Robin’s. She waited for him to finish the sentence but at his glazed look she realised he needed a prompt.

“Cormoran?”

“Did you know, you know the… the colours on the seats on the tube, those little lines, you know them?”

Robin glanced across at Nick who looked as confused as she felt.

“Yeah, sure.”

“They… the ones on the circle and district line and the other...“

“Hammersmith and city?” Nick supplied.

“That’s it, you’re a gent.” Strike replied with a smile towards Nick before turning back to Robin.

“Did you know that those lines are the colours of the lines.”

“Oggy, you’re not having an aneurism are you?”

“Shh you. I mean, you know the lines, like circle and district are yellow and green, right?” Strike’s face was animated, his eyes wild as he looked between the two of them. Robin couldn’t help but smile. She wondered if Cormoran would ever stop making her do just that.

“Well all the lines on the seats, all of them, are yellow and green, district and circle, and… what’s the other one… pink, pink is Hammersmith and city.”

“Oxford must have wept when you left.” Nick sniggered.

“Hey I told you to shush, Robin is enjoying this story, aren’t you?”

“Oh yeah, riveting.” Robin replied with a smile thrown in Nick’s direction. She looked back at Strike and saw the energy had left his face somewhat. His mouth drooped slightly and she noticed the trepidation in his eyes as he glanced back down at his pint. 

“I’ve had one to many I think… I should go and… yeah.” Strike looked around the table, probably looking for the cigarettes that were in his pocket, Robin thought.

“No, come on. I want to hear the end of this. What’s the other one?”

“The other, oh the other… is it the Jubilee? That’s grey, was it grey?” Strike’s eyebrows furrowed as he tried to remember.

“Pink and green and yellow… even the dots on the bloody floor are those colours. Fuck, what’s the other one? I don’t even know my own fact.” Strike slumped back in his seat as Robin and Nick exchanged amused glances. Ilsa made her way back to the table and Strike seemed to be reanimated.

“Ilsa what’s the other one? You know, the colour of the lines on the seat?” Ilsa looked from Strike to Robin to Nick, who just held his own pint aloft and nodded towards Strike’s empty one.

“Purple.” Ilsa replied as she doled out the drinks she had gotten.

“What?”

“It’s purple.”

“No it’s not. What’s purple? That’s the metropolitan line. Fuck, is it that?” 

‘Yep.” Ilsa passed Strike the glass of water she’d gotten him and although it was in a pint glass she doubted it would successfully disguise itself as the beer he’d asked for. With Strike distracted she let Robin and Nick silently know that she had just plucked a colour out of thin air and had no idea what Cormoran was on about.

“That’s a terrible colour.” Strike mused.

“Wasn’t your bedroom at Joan and Ted’s purple?” Ilsa remembered Strike’s attempts to cover the colour he’d come to loathe with magazine clippings, posters and pages ripped from old arsenal sticker books Leda had found in a charity shop.

“Only cause Lucy made me swap. Mine was blue, like the sea Robin, blue like the sea. But Lucy’s had the boiler above it in the attic and she didn’t like the sounds it made at night.” Robin smiled warmly as Strike slid back in his seat with a frown lamenting his childhood loss. He looked younger in the soft light of the pub.

“You’re a good big brother.” 

Strike looked at Robin as his eyes cleared a little, the way the drunkest person can grasp a moment of clarity when words stray a little too close. 

“No.”

“You are Corm. You got more than your fair share.” Ilsa reached across the table to grab Strike’s hand and they shared a knowing glance. She then pushed the glass of water towards him with a pointed look.

“I should go home.” Strike announced as he stood up with a sway.

“You alright to get home mate?” Nick stood and guided Strike’s floundering arm into his coat. 

“Course. Hollow leg me.” Robin couldn’t help but laugh as Ilsa and Nick rolled their eyes in perfect unison.

With a wave, Strike left them and meandered his way through the pub and out the door. Robin watched his form blur and become absorbed into the night scene outside.

“His lucky boxers are purple.”

“Nick!”

“What? They are.”

Robin let the warm feeling of contentment wash over her, aided by the red wine Ilsa had been encouraging all night and also, she realised happily, by the chatter of those she had come to call close friends.

“Why have you seen Corm’s lucky boxers?”

“Well Oggy’s seen mine so it’s only fair.”

“I don’t want to know.”


End file.
